What Now?
by RabbitRun
Summary: After the fight for Manhattan, Bruce and Tony play a drinking game. How do you move on when there are so many demons holding you back?


My attempt at a Bruce/Tony story. I don't own anything. Reviews always appreciated!

"So what now?"

Tony Stark looked at Bruce intently, trying to deduce the expression on the other scientist's face; it seemed to hover somewhere between "constipated" and "exhausted," though it was probably more of the latter. When Bruce didn't immediately answer, Tony snapped his fingers in agitation.

"Come on, Green Machine. I'm not getting any younger."

Bruce looked startled, as if he had been pulled out of a dream and didn't know where he landed.

"I'm sorry, were you talking to me?"

Tony signed impatiently and motioned to the empty square where the eclectic group of warriors had stood just moments ago. "I don't know if you've noticed, but Thor and his brother Star Trek'd it back to Asgard; our dynamic duo drove off to do... whatever brooding assassins do after missions; and Captain sped off on his motorcycle to be his boy scout self and earn his badge in 'let's learn the year 2012.' That leaves the two of us, big man."

Tony leaned forward and punched Bruce in the arm with an unnecessary roughness; the elder scientist's shoulder twitched slightly, but his face showed no fluctuation.

"I've spent my last year in Calcutta avoiding causing a major world catastrophe, Stark; I'm probably the last person you want to ask about fun."

The two men sat in silence for a moment, studying the cracked pavement, letting the midday New York sun beat down upon the backs of their necks. As if on instinct, their eyes raised to meet one another's.

"Drinks?"

"Drinks."

Two hours and one windy convertible ride later, the men arrived at a deserted bar located somewhere in upstate New York. Bruce had fallen asleep several minutes into the trip, and as he had long ago made a subconscious decision to avoid New York at all costs, he let Tony pick the destination.

As soon as he stepped into the restaurant, he immediately regretted it.

The paint—which was an ugly puce color—was peeling off the walls, revealing slabs of cement that looked ready to crumble at any minute. Two lonely pool tables stood in the middle of the bar, their uneven legs propped up using discarded and very worn home improvement magazines. The bar area itself had clearly seen better days—the wood acting as the counter appeared to be rotting, and the three-legged stools looked ready to collapse should anyone actually use them.

Snorting, Bruce clapped Tony on the back. "I gotta say, Stark—you sure know how to pick 'em."

Tony frowned and walked haughtily past the fellow scientist toward the dilapidated table.

"Calm down, princess. Before Pepper, this is where I used to take all of my dates."

Sitting down on one of the more sturdy chairs, Tony patted the seat next to him, looking smugly at Bruce.

"Well, remind me not to take your advice on women, either."

"Right, Banner; last time I checked, your dating record resembled that of a high school mathlete. With acne. Now come on before I die of dehydration."

Bruce eyed the chair wearily.

"What, did they not have chairs over in India?" Tony huffed, starting to seem legitimately frustrated. Bruce walked over to the stool and tapped it with his foot.

"Are you sure this thing can...hold me?"

Tony, who had already started snacking on the dish of what appeared to be stale peanuts, looked at him incredulously. "Who, you? When you're not the Lean Green Machine you've got the frame of a male ballerina. Now sit."

Not wanting to argue, Bruce followed suit; the chair creaked a little, but appeared to struggle on.

An awkward silence settled in between the two men, filled only by the soft beat of a dated eighties track playing quietly in the background. Luckily, they didn't have to wait long; soon after they sat down, a surly looking bartender covered in a thick coat of hair and attempting to polish an empty mug of beer walked lazily over to them. He gave Bruce a suspicious look, but seemed to recognize Tony and gave him a curt nod.

"How you been, Tony?" He spoke with a thick eastern New York accent which suddenly made a wave of uneasiness and depression wash over Bruce. He had known he was in New York the minute his sputtering motorcycle crossed the border, but it hadn't really hit him until the grease-covered bartender had spoken. A flood of memories hit him with more force than Thor's hammer had earlier that week, and his head started to spin with faces, names, places of loved ones whose lives he had so recently destroyed and ruined by his own hand.

By his own stupidity.

"What'll it be for you, man?"

Bruce's trance was broken by the bartender's harsh voice, and he looked up to find Tony's eyes boring into him impatiently.

"Oh... umm...I'll have a Mike's Hard lemonade, I guess."

The bartender's eyebrow raised, and Tony slapped a hand to his head.

"And you appear to have the drinking record of a high school mathlete, as well. Ignore that, Bill—he'll have the same as me."

Before Bruce could protest, the bartender—Bill, apparently—had sauntered off to the back room to fish out whatever God-awful alcohol they were sure to serve here.

Tony leaned forward and perched on the edge of his chair, looking at Bruce with the same probing eye that was starting to get on Bruce's nerves.

"You really don't know how to have fun, do you, Poindexter? What happened, couldn't get into the clubs? Because I personally think that it would be hard to say no to an eight-foot-tall hunk of muscle."

Tony pushed the bowl of mystery food towards him, and feeling the need to settle the anxious pressure building up in his stomach, Bruce obliged.

"It's not that, exactly," Bruce said, grimacing as he attempted to choke down an especially stale peanut. "I just had a feeling that rooms full of flashing lights and loud noises wouldn't be best for my...state of control. And I tend to get testy when I'm drunk."

As he finished speaking, the bartender emerged from the swinging door, carrying two very full mugs of a yellowish-brown liquid. Tony did not hesitate, and as soon as it was placed in front of him, he began to drink greedily. Bruce picked his up and sipped, immediately spewing the misty mixture of saliva and alcohol back into the cup.

"Well, that's not very good manners. Imagine what Bill would think of that," Tony said, still staring hungrily into the cup.

"This stuff is vile! What the hell is in this, Stark?"

Tony shrugged, continuing to slurp down the disgusting concoction. "Dunno. Never asked. Something that gets you very drunk very quickly. And it gets worse the longer you let it sit there, so I'd start chugging if I were you."

Bruce pushed it away, letting the liquid slosh over the side and spill onto the table. "Sorry, Stark. I'm pretty sure I stopped drinking this type of thing in college."

Tony had begun to slow down, and was looking at Bruce with an expression the other man couldn't read; it looked almost pained, but in the dim neon light of the bar it was difficult to tell.

"Come on, Banner, don't make me drink alone—brings back bad memories." He stared sourly into his mug for a moment, and then his dark eyes suddenly lit up. "Wanna play a drinking game?"

Bruce laughed, but stopped when Tony continued to stare at him with a mixture of eagerness and desperation. "Wait, you're serious?"

"As Spock hooked up to a lie detector."

Bruce smiled at the reference, but shook his head lightly. "That's stupid, Stark; I already told you I'm not in college anymore. Besides, what would we play? There are only two of us."

Tony thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "We could play a truth or dare type thing—we'll say a secret then take a shot."

Bruce's smile widened a little. "A little elementary, isn't it? And it's not really a game."

"Everything's a game if you want it to be, tough guy. Come on, do this for me—I caught a bomb for you. Literally. And then destroyed a mothership containing what was left of an army that could have destroyed the world. So actually if we're being realistic, you have to do whatever the hell I say."

Bruce still looked hesitant, although Tony could tell he was beginning to cave.

"Come on, Banner; it'll be fun—like two girls at a slumber party. I'll go first: I haven't had a decent bowel movement in weeks."

Bruce stared blankly at him for several seconds and suddenly he burst into laughter, a smile stretching across his entire face and causing the corners of his eyes to wrinkle upwards in a way that made him look like a teenager on his first date. Tony couldn't help but notice how incredibly radiant he looked—the wrinkles of worry lining his eyes and mouth had disappeared, making him look years younger than he actually was. His shoulders, which he normally kept hunched over, were now thrown back and shaking with laughter, causing his entire body to adopt a regal air that commanded confidence and joy. His hilarity proved to be contagious, and soon Tony found himself grinning along with him.

"No, I'm serious. I think it was Pepper—the woman took me out for Indian food last month and the pipes haven't been working the same since. I'll take my shot now."

Tony took a swig of his brew while Bruce finished laughing, using his thick fingers to wipe tears from his eyes while he did so. "Thanks, Stark. It's been a long time since I laughed like that."

"A typical reaction to my antics. Now it's your turn."

Bruce shook his head. "I don't know, I don't think I can top that."

"Sure you can. You have to, actually. Plus I'm already halfway drunk, so pretty much anything you say will sound interesting to me."

"Okay...umm...I threw up on myself during my eleventh grade speech class."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Come on, you can do better than that. I want something juicy, something I can sell to the tabloids for a quick hundred bucks."

"I never stopped looking for a way to kill myself."

The comment came out of nowhere; Bruce hadn't meant to say it, not really, but once it was out, he couldn't take it back. It hung in the air like a thick smog and bore down on them, rendering the already deserted bar silent. Bruce clutched the dirty mug so tightly that his knuckles were white, and the other hand was clenched into a fist that shook more and more violently with each tension-filled moment.

Tony stared at him, then started to speak in a voice unlike any Bruce had ever heard before. It was pained, haunted, broken, like that of a hopeless child who had just come to realize that his dead dog he had just buried in the ground was never coming back.

"Yeah? Well sometimes I wish that shrapnel had just gone straight to my heart."

Any trace of the light-hearted, carefree Tony Stark was now long gone, leaving behind a cracked shell that leaked self-loathing and bitterness. His normally sparkling eyes were now void of life and held more hatred than Bruce thought was possible in the jovial billionaire. Bruce knew he should feel sympathy for his teammate, but instead of compassion, a mixture of rage and jealousy bubbled up within his chest, pushing its way through his throat and exiting the body in a string of angry words spoken in a voice that trembled with pure, unadulterated rage.

"Right. Because you have it so difficult, what with your loving girlfriend and million-dollar home and adoring crowd. You know, Stark, is there any part of you that doesn't reek of self-obsession and egoism? Have you, during your comfortable forty-some years, ever given even a semblance of thought to anyone else? Or do you just wake up every day expecting the world to fall to their knees in admiration while you wallow in self-pity?"

Droplets of spit flew from his mouth with the last word, flying through the air and landing on Tony's forehead. He made no effort to wipe it off.

"It's not what you think," Tony said in an eerily quiet voice that radiated regret and grief. He appeared to be on the verge of crying, but Bruce did not notice; he was on a roll, and he felt his blood pressure rise with each moment that he looked at the destitute genius. His face twisted into a mad smirk, and he gave a manic chuckle.

"You know, you've got some nerve, buddy. Do you know what it's like to actually feel pain? Do you know what it's like to live each day in complete and utter fear of losing control and rendering everything you've worked for worthless? Do you know what it's like to have people look at you in terror, to have them think you're worth more dead than alive—and to actually _believe_ them? Do you know what it's like to live in complete solitude with absolutely_ no one _who you can call a friend because you destroyed everyone you ever cared about due to your own selfish need to push your limits? Ambition made you, Stark, but it ruined me. Your powers leveled an Iraqi terrorist camp, mine leveled a neighborhood of innocent people. I'm a freak, a monster; I've isolated myself, wasted away in holes in the wall that I was forced to call home because I couldn't stand to look at myself. Because every time I looked into a mirror, I didn't see Bruce Banner; I saw an abomination, a pathetic excuse for a human being—if you could even call me that." He was standing now; the stool lay on the ground, its legs having finally given into the pressure after he had pushed it out from under him. He moved forcefully towards Tony and grabbed him by the collar, pulling their faces together so that they hung just inches apart. He shook dangerously; Tony could feel his hot, angry breath on his hair with each exhale, and his face was contorted into a disgusting grimace that rendered the normally mild-mannered scholar almost unrecognizable. His body gave the frightening sensation that it was pulsing.

"Bruce, watch it!" Tony choked, placing his hands on the shorter man's chest to try and push him away. Bruce seemed to snap back to reality and collapsed onto the dirt-covered floor, wrapping his arms around his knees and placing his head on his forearms.

"You don't know, Tony...I'm so lonely, so, so lonely. And sometimes I hate you for what you have—for your money, your success, Pepper... you don't know how good you have it, Stark. And she's forced to sit there while you live your selfish life and take her for granted."

Now it was Tony's turn to get angry.

"Don't you dare, Banner," he seethed in a dangerous voice. He was actually crying now, tears brimming on the lids of his dark eyes. He wasn't bothering to blink them back.

"For years I've had to sit there and watch as my ambition—my ambition that you seem to think gives me such a flawless life—murdered people. My inventions have incinerated families, cities, towns, the members of which hadn't harmed a soul. You think you're so damn pitiable because you couldn't control your emotions and ended up hurting people? Well guess what—I was in control. Complete control. I willingly created nuclear weapons, technology that has destroyed more lives than I can count, and it's ruining me, Banner; it's killing me from the inside out. And I know that no matter how much good I do as Iron Man, no matter how many cities I save, it will never make up for the devastation I've caused, never ease my conscience. You say people love me? You're wrong, buddy; you're dead wrong. For every person that loves me there are at least two more who wish I was dead. And I don't blame them. Everywhere I've gone I've left a trail of destruction in my path, and those consequences are going to haunt me and everyone I love forever. Ivan Vanko made me realize that. You say I take Pepper for granted? You say she's just another accessory in my life of luxury? Well you're wrong, Banner—you're so wrong. I was miserable, pathetic, a wretch before her. She's the only thing that's holding me together; without her all I'd be is an empty shell of a weapon of mass destruction. And the worst part is that every day I'm forced to sit there as she wastes away with worry and stress—and it's all over me. It's all because of me. But I can't do anything, I can't leave her—I love her too much, and that'd be just another bullet point to add to the list of "Things Tony Stark has Done Wrong." God knows I don't deserve her, but I need her; I need her more than anything else in the world."

Tony sunk down to join the other man on the floor, leaning his back against the bar and covering his face with his hands.

"You think you're so smart. If you're as intelligent as you say, Banner, you should be able to see past this front that I put on, should be able to tell that I have to live every day with what I've done and that it's killing me...you of all people should know that appearances don't say shit about a person."

It took some time for the last words to sink in with Bruce. He was right; he was always right, and he both loved and hated him for it.

"Maybe that's why I feel so much closer to you than the others," Tony said, more to himself than to his onlooking companion. "We're incredibly alike in so many ways...I have friends, but I'm always so alone...you're the first person besides Pepper I've ever felt like I could connect to. And I know you don't have it easy, I know how hard it can get...but I just wish someone could see my life isn't made out of gold, either."

Bruce turned to look at the man crumpled on the ground beside him. He looked haunted, alien, like a toy that had once been new but had decidedly run its course. His face was tattered and worn, and if Bruce didn't know him, he would have guessed him to be years older than he actually was. His wrinkles seemed more defined, his hair disheveled, his mouth twisted downwards into a bitter grimace. The worst part, though, was his eyes. He had never seen eyes so empty in his life.

Aside from in his mirror.

Subconsciously, he extended his hand, but stopped it in midair before it could reach Tony. The other scientist turned his head but made no sign that he noticed; he simply stared at it blankly, half-amused, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick. Gently, Bruce placed his arm around Tony's shoulders, drawing him in so that they were almost touching.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't know how long they sat there like that, in silence, reveling in one another's company. The only thing that could be heard was their heavy breathing, which had seemed to achieve a strange sort of synchronization that can only come with complete and utter trust.

"What now?"

Tony had uttered those same words just hours ago, but they implied so much more now. They weren't just referring to evening plans or a cure for boredom; the two men knew more about each other than anyone else in the world, and while it was a relief to finally release what had been weighing down on their hearts for so long, the burden was not a light one. It was almost as if they had made a trade—Bruce's for Tony's, Tony's for Bruce's, and because of it they would be connected forever. Neither needed to say it to know it was true; then again, not much could be said to convey what they were feeling now.

"What now?" Tony repeated the mantra, this time speaking directly to Bruce, a tint of desperation in his voice.

Bruce turned his solemn eyes to look into the other scientist's frantic ones. "We forgive. We move on. Forward. We stay together."

Tony gave a long, shaky sigh, still trembling slightly. "Yeah. Forward. Together." He reached up to take hold of his mug, then shook his head and brought it back down to rest on his knee. He gave a weak laugh. "Look at us. We really are like a couple of girls at a slumber party."

Bruce smiled. "Yeah. Cause most teenage girls are dysfunctional wrecking balls who get drunk and share their darkest secrets right after saving the world."

Tony grinned, but it faded in moments. "How are we supposed to start?"

Bruce looked at him thoughtfully, then stood and held out his hand.

"We get up."

And Tony did.

And the two moved on.

They moved forward.

Hope you liked it!


End file.
